


Light of the Phoenix:

by TheLightdancer



Series: Galaxia in Tres Partes Divisa Est [1]
Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Alternate Heresy, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:34:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27693542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLightdancer/pseuds/TheLightdancer
Summary: The Crusade, fifty years before the onslaught of the betrayal of Horus Lupercal and the schemes of Lorgar Aurelian, is disrupted by two abrupt changes. Perturabo, Hammer of Olympia, without warning withdraws his entire Legion from the Crusade, removing it from every single garrison it possesses, and from its active war-fronts. His ship, near the fleet of the World Eaters, encounters that of his brother the Gladiator-King, Lord of the Red Sands. In a single moment where a new and terrible dream dawns, the Galaxy turns by a wheel that neither the Imperium nor Chaos foresaw.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Perturabo & Alpharius-Omegon, Perturabo & Angron, Perturabo & Jaghatai Khan, Perturabo & Mortarion, The Emperor of Mankind & The Primarchs
Series: Galaxia in Tres Partes Divisa Est [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025272
Kudos: 10





	Light of the Phoenix:

_Prologue, The Bridge of the Conqueror:_

The World Eaters, of which only a small number as yet in the wake of the Night of the Wolf had been implanted with the Nails, had largely obeyed the directions of their Primarch to depart when he had ordered the new ship-captain, Lotara Sarrin, to drop the void shields. She had become the captain when the other had deemed Angron of the XII Legion a traitor, and then Kharn had kindly relieved her of her head. Two demigods met, incarnate power of War that had divided a Galaxy between first Twenty and now Eighteen warlords. Angron was a brutal giant, a statue of an angel marred by blades and hammers and left a wreck and a ruin. Something in him, even with the terrible artificial power of the Nails was curious, insofar as he could focus. 

The other figure had thrown a sudden and drastic wrench in his father's plans. The Lord of Iron, Hammer of Olympia, Siege-Breaker, had unilaterally terminated his participation in the Crusade. Garrisons had been withdrawn, Grand Battalions consolidated. Even the garrison on distant Olympia had been withdrawn with quiet words given and guarantees of obedience sealed by the revelation of secret vortex weapons hidden beneath the city-states to ensure their allegiance to their true masters were not forgotten. It was an action without precedent in the memory of a Legion's service (though Malcador had frowned in great sorrow, eyes turned to the plinth where a number, XI, endured and an empty foundation that had once held a statue showed a marked out name).

By circumstance, Angron and his Legion were close to where the Iron Blood and its entire fleet, a force that at its current numbers was only a little less than the Ultramarines and at this point superior to the Bearers of the Word, counting their losses, had re-entered space. Then had come the hail, and the statements of words that Angron had found himself tempted to remove the sneering giant's head that had spoken them and then intrigued in spite of himself.

Now here, a single mortal and Kharn as witnesses, two demigods faced each other. Angron the feral statue looked at the other, the Nails spiking and drool seeping from his mouth as blood dripped from his nose.

If he was a broken statue, the immense hulking shape of the other was a living mountain of war-metal, a giant in the pattern of Ferrus Manus. Brutally rugged, a vast stamped figure of war and slaughter. Eyes blue as the skies over his world of Olympia gazed with a harsh and cruel and aristocratic look at the feral gladiator, the words spoken in a tectonic voice giving Angron pause.

"You keep saying you will give me a gift that I have not had....." the feral gladiator grunted, a hnnh sound that was somewhere between pig and ape, "since the high-riders carved up my brain."

The vast mechanical-seeming war-engine in the shape of a man gave a single nod.

"I can."

"What gift?"

And it was then that Perturabo's eyes had seemed to shine with a sense of humor and surprising malice, as he raised a device, a curious bit of Dark Age archaeotech that he had found.

"Sleep, my errant brother."

Light flashed and then the path of dreams stole on Sarrin, Angron, and Kharn. The Lord of Iron turned as a flash of teleportation brought his Trident. Forrix, Harkor, and one he had promoted recently as a sign of his break with his past. Barabas Dantioch, the one that moved first, was followed by the other two in kneeling before their lord.

"Bring him to the medicae deck on the Iron Blood. We have work to do."

\----------

_JUST BEYOND THE GHOUL STARS, A YEAR LATER:_

The disappearance of not one but two Legions had been a catastrophe without parallel for the Crusade. It was not just the Primarchs or the Legions that were rocked by it, but the very foundations of the Crusade itself. None of the other Legions had truly appreciated the nature of the task the Iron Warriors had been bestowed until others had had to take it themselves, and had found to their detriment that it was easier said than done. If such had been the lesson of Perturabo's actions, it was a harsh one and cruelly given and yet where the Legions and their masters did not know what had become of the vanished Red Angel and Lord of Iron, the Emperor had become grave, and quiet words had dispatched the Wolf King on a hunt to find the Lost Ones. 

The Lord of Winter and War had returned to Fenris, to consult with his Rune Priests and with various elements of what to the Lord of Winter and War were the magickal backdrop of creation. The Underverse knew of the spirits and the souls of the dead, yet auguries of the dead did not provide conclusive fates. Others of his brothers believed the Primarchs in question and their legions lost in a terrible mutual fratricide. Roboute, Dorn, Fulgrim, even Ferrus. Russ knew better, as did Magnus, and even Lorgar. Of them all, Lorgar had taken the disappearance with the greatest consternation and had Russ chosen to seek what lay behind these statements and actions known, much might have been different.

But such was not the task given him by the Emperor. It had taken a year, a year of Kva and of his other Rune Priests' hard work in sifting through the Underverse's writ, and of Warp soundings as the other Legions would have defined it, to find a trace of them. _The Conqueror_ had manifested near the world of Honorum, traces of a terrible battle on its surface. The writ of the Emperor as a goad and as another punishment lurking as a reward, spurred the Wolves to gather their fleet. The ship had appeared near Honorum yet it was silent, no traces of the Lost Ones visible, and no answers to any hails from that strange and distant world.

It had taken the Lord of Winter and War a surprisingly short time in real time to make the journey, but two months across the Galaxy, two months of careful honing. He had girded himself for a task that he had undertaken but once, with the Purged, in the wake of a foolish bid on his part and a defiance of what was written into all of them in letters of blood. It added that extra note of sourness to the memories of the ill-starred Rangdan Xenocides, and it was with memories of the dead brother who had seen his throat torn in that battle in the wake of his failure behind his eyes that his flagship preceded his fleet to the derelict near Honorum.

The Warp had let them go with a strange seeming blend of reluctance and almost fear. Yet it had let them go all the same, for no _maleficarum_ could hold the sons of Fenris if war called. Even so terrible a concept as this one.

He turned to his shipmaster, tectonic Wurgen echoing from him with a wolf's vicious growl in the dark.

"Contact them. Hail my brother."

The hail was sent. Once. Twice. Eight times. No answers.

His twin wolf-companions were beside him, their fur rising with hackles, one of them making a low canid growl, teeth shining in the light of the Ghoul Stars. His Jarls, his Einherjar reflected his own ill-ease but they spoke nothing of it, and for that he was proud of them.

"Activate the teleport homer," his voice rasped to Jorin Bloodhowl, commander of his Thirteenth Great Company.

"Jorin, Gunn, Ogvai, Kva, with me. Await my summons to launch boarding torpedoes."

"My king," it was Amdlodhi Larssen Skarssenson who spoke up in the uneasy silence. "If he should object to your presence..."

"Then we'll finish what we started with the Night of the Wolf. He has already said he's a traitor against our father in waiting."

Silence fell, then, and the Lord of Winter and War strode in his colossal armor to a teleportation homer and with his three Jarls and his Rune-Priest vanished in a brilliant flare of Warp-light.

\--------

They arrived a deck down from the bridge on a ship that was rimed with frost and empty. Mag-locked boots enabled them to keep an easy footing as they saw frozen blood splattered along parts of the ship, and corpses that had withered and changed in the frozen cold moving.

Snarls came from their mouths, the growls of predators near a camp-fire. There was nothing good in what this meant, or could mean. Yet none dared say the prospect. The II and XI Legions had met a fate only remembered by a Legion entrusted to remember it but their deeds had been erased and they had failed. For the eternal to end, for the endless to prove mortal.....

The Emperor could unmake his works, and it had been him who had truly done the deed with the failed sons. Primarchs could not die, they were Gods, or as close to Gods as the Imperial Truth allowed. That thought affected their steps, giving them a false confidence as they moved with helm-lights visible through a barrow-yard splattered in frozen blood and mutilated corpses.

"Kva?"

Russ sensed something ahead, but he wished the Rune Priest's confirmation.

"Yes, Lord, it's there. _Maleficarum._ On the bridge. A wight of the Underverse."

"A wight," growled Russ. "A wight and a dead ship of frozen blood and corpses. I do not think the loss of the Gladiator-King is any great loss but there is something wrong about this. Guard yourselves, Jarls. What truth there is to find in this Hel-ship awaits."

Growls echoed from their voice and the pack stalked, moving silently like wolves padding on the red snow.

The door to the bridge was smashed open, or more precisely seemed torn open and charred, a strange trace of fire present.

Then they saw the sight that would haunt them, and the Imperium, until the hours of fate dawned.

A Wight, a dark lord of the Underverse stood over the dead bodies of Angron and Perturabo, a thing of iridescent fire and twin heads.

Its four eyes turned to Leman Russ.

Fate has changed. Fate was always meant to lead here.

It kicked the broken body of the Lord of Iron, a vast axe buried deep within the plastron.

Iron was never meant to break. Iron was meant to break and to be Prince of Medrengard.

The eyes continued to look at Russ and his sons, who were preparing to strike.

We have come together on the same errand, Leman of Terra. We have come together by random chance, and there is no pattern in our meeting.

We seek the same quarry. We are alike confused by the twists of destiny.

Russ drew his blade.

"I don't deal with the Wights of the Underverse save to send you back."

Both heads spoke at once:

We are beyond you, Prince of Wolves. Skulk back to your den.

Russ laughed.

"I am the Allfather's executioner. Nothing is beyond me."

He moved as a great giant out of legend and the Wight turned and roared and a terrible battle ensued with Kva speaking unwords of power tied to the Underverse, invoking the dark power of Morkai and drawing upon the power of the World-Spirit as Russ moved, his power unrelenting and destructive. His pelt had burned and there were scorches on his armor in part, but only minor ones, and the creature was bleeding, roaring denials that were fervent and yet useless.

When the frostblade struck in the creature's heart, or what was akin to it, it tried to peck at Russ, who turned with his fangs and tore the throat out of one of the heads, and the thing soon found itself banished back into the Warp.

Flushed with triumph, Russ's manner changed from the barbarian king to the refined intellect that hid beneath. As the wight had before him he strode to the bodies, a sudden look of deep and profound grief warring with confusion on his face.

His voice growled with the wolfish snarl that made him seem a beast with a man's face when it flavored his tongue.

The Gladiator-King worked a great murder-make against the Lord of Iron and yet.....

His sword moved the body of Angron. The lower jaw was missing, and.....

He looked more closely at the Nails, eyes flickering, and then lowered himself somewhat ponderously to a knee, moving his brother's head upward.

"Odd," he murmured.

"My lord, are they...."

He turned to Kva, and a quiet communication in looks and both micro-expressions and the movement of Kva's face made Russ snarl, for a moment.

"For now....yes. The Lord of Iron and the Gladiator-King are dead."

Two of the Nails in his hand were ripped out of Angron's head, forcibly, and the look on Russ's face was a brooding one as he took the Nails and sought to examine elements of them for a reason that he did not disclose to his men.

It was with that brooding and somber mood that Russ returned to Terra, speaking to Malcador the Sigilite, and to his Father, who was on-world for a time.

The news was sobering, and information was exchanged whose fuller nature would only become manifest half a century later.

A careful watch was placed around Olympia and around Sarum, and there was a strange set of actions taken. The statues of Perturabo and of Angron were shrouded but not destroyed, and the Emperor spoke little to his sons, beyond noting that Angron and Perturabo had had a falling out. Officially, the Conqueror had brought two of the great heroes of the Imperium from a conflict with a terrible force of Xenos empowered by the Empyrean, and lauding songs and memorials were raised to the Lord of Iron and the Eater of Worlds.

And a quiet doubt grew even among the most loyal sons of the Emperor. The eternal had proven not so, the endless had ended.

In a Galaxy where Primarchs died and loyal sons of the Emperor turned upon each other and murdered each other and no traces of their Legion were left, what had been certain was no longer so.

Too, there was another disquieting thing in the frontiers of human space. A pair of great figures had arisen, a Liberator with the Dread Crown, and a prophet of a Republic. Worlds had begun to heed the words of these unknown entities, who had elements, seemingly, of Primarchs about them, and yet there was no true conclusive proof of their existence, in the beginning. Where Russ had failed, Alpharius would find himself sent within a decade of the proliferation of these stories.

In the beginning, two Legions vanished and a flagship was found with the dead bodies of two Primarchs.

And fate, with its merciless path that had been intended since long before the being that would become the Emperor had gained the power and the ability to forge his monsters to retake the stars and tilt humanity down his own singular path, had found itself diverted from one pattern of its river to another, and the Powers of the Warp looked in dismay and in anger. Thwarted for a time could they be, but Chaos would no more be denied than the Emperor. If one set of plans were to be denied.....there were others, and there would be others.


End file.
